Online petition for an updated Civ III editor

[Steph]

On the opposite, I think an event engine would be much more complicated, but I hope going beyond the hard coded limit is easy.

 

[Keroro]

Well you're the coder, so I'll bow to your knowledge Steph. I was just thinking that as civassist has already proved that it is possible to track changes in the save file, it would be possible to implement a system to track and then alter the situation of the save file. But like I said, you're the coder. If it were possible to easily change the limits of the editor (like number of civs etc.) then that would be fantastic in itself. Alternatively we have SSS to look forward to.

I am always inspired by the work that has been done on the Call to Power code, which has gone well beyond the limitations of the original game. If only someone competent (read: not me) could get their hands on the civ 3 source...

Have a good weekend everyone.

 

[T-mun]

Don't know if this has been asked (haven't read all the replies), if so I would second some kind of "advanced diplomacy" allowing you to make non-agression treaties, meaning you wouldn't automatically declare war to your friend's enemies.
Another idea : something like "sympathy (/antipathy) for another civ" could associate two or more civs who would not easily declare war to each other, and on the contrary want to make treaties and commercial exchanges. This would be great for scenarios and mods : for example in Warhammer you could have High Elves and Empire tending to make friends and fighting the same enemies. Without alliances, every civ could be free to choose when they go to war and who they definitely hate without any reason. A WW2 scenario could start in the '30s with Germany hating everyone except Italy and Japan (or any other fascist governement), and aggressing who they want...
Satellite-states could be useful too, or vassals in the middle-age. You could take the ennemy's capital and have the other civ working for you!
Diplomacy in Civ is way too simplistic. Military strategy too : there could be embush tactics, guerilla ones using the terrain bonus, resistance...

 

[Logitech]

Themanuneed,
I like the idea for advanced diplomacy, I forgot about it.
Also I like the sympathy/antipathy idea. Mabey something more like what you were going for towards the end of your paragraph, like a "civ ___ likes only other civs with monarchy as their government" kind of option.
As far as the source code discution goes, I should think that rewriting or adding stuff to the .dlls might be a bit difficult without some kind of idea of what you're doing. Of coarse, I don't do much with files like that, just the .txt, .pcx, and .flc.

 

[T-mun]

Mabey something more like what you were going for towards the end of your paragraph, like a "civ ___ likes only other civs with monarchy as their government" kind of option.

That's what I was thinking of, but you could also have sympathy between two civs for other reasons, not only governement type. Democrats should hate fascists but could like Monarchists, etc.

 

[rifleman]

I would LOVE to see this happen! And I wouldn't mind paying for it.

I can't tell you how many times I've been frustrated by the 'hard-coded' restrictions of the game.

I hope someone would let us know as soon as there is any hope that this is a possibility.

 

[I_batman]

On the opposite, I think an event engine would be much more complicated, but I hope going beyond the hard coded limit is easy.

I have always had a very hard time with anything in this game that had a hard coded limit of something other than a byte in size, or a byte with a half byte shift.

A range of 0-255 for something makes sense, since that would be one byte. Anything with a 4 bit shift makes sense.

But when I look at something like gold costs of 1-1000, that drives me nuts. That requires 10 bits, so the 2nd byte of memory is already being addressed, so why did the coders not set the gold limit from 1-65535. Even with a half-byte shift we are talking 4000 plus.

I don't get it. Maybe Steph can explain any potential thought process that may have been going through the Firaxis team at that point.

Event engines are a nightmare. Ask the Civ IV modders.

 

[Steph]

I don't get it. Maybe Steph can explain any potential thought process that may have been going through the Firaxis team at that point.

I'm afraid it may be explained better by a lack of thought process
1-999 makes senses, as it means you need 3 digits in the GUI, while with 1000 you need 1 more digit, so slightly bigger GUI.
1-1000 was probably "just for gameplay", or because they wanted a rounded limit.

 

[Ares de Borg]

Any news?

And yes, I'd buy it.

 

[Ozymandias]

Any news?

Not a peep here. I feel like we're little more than gnats at their picnic.

-Oz

 

[sercer88]

Not a peep here. I feel like we're little more than gnats at their picnic.

-Oz

That's too bad.

Even though I'm not a hard-core modder, I still like to play around in the editor; knowing that I can change the game to my style is really fun.

 

[Steph]

Not a peep here. I feel like we're little more than gnats at their picnic.
-Oz

I suspect we will not achieve anything from Firaxis, with their new expansion, etc...

Our only hope is to unit to make our own game

 

[Ozymandias]

I suspect we will not achieve anything from Firaxis, with their new expansion, etc...

Our only hope is to unit to make our own game

I agree and heartily endorse the formation of The First Church Of Steph

Best,

Oz

 

[Gen. Rommel]

Though it's most likely more futile than trying to resist a hot woman in heat, I'll voice my common interest for a patch improving civ-editor mechanics. Basically the thingss that R8XFT mentioned are things I'd generally like to see added.

Only thing I could add is bringing in an event creator so that one can set off certain events at specific times during a scenario. An exampe for this would be turning parts of a nation into an autonomous state at a certain date in time (i.e. something resembling a civil war). Would be an interesting addition.

At least the game is already good as is and this change would only mean slightly tweaking an already incredible game. (<=== suck-up )

 

[I_batman]

I agree and heartily endorse the formation of The First Church Of Steph

Best,

Oz

Well, my self-imposed embargo on slagging TakeTwo is almost over. Co-incidentally, the board at TakeTwo were pretty much turfed today. The other people who have helped sow the problems at TakeTwo are likely gone soon as well.

Basically, after discussion with Jason Bergman of TakeTwo, last November I crafted a proposal for TakeTwo. I had a few fairly prominent/active members in the Civ III community help polish it.
I sent it to Jason, who in turn internally forwarded to the decision-makers within TakeTwo.

Bottom line, I have emailed Jason a few times, asking what state this is in. He has told me that he has forwarded up the food chain, and there is nothing else he can do, so I have no problem with Jason.
I do have a problem with the complete lack of response from his bosses.
I knew there was pretty much no chance of a positive result, but I do have a problem with the professionalism of the decision-makers.
A two-line email saying "thanks, but no thanks" is all I expected.
So I look on this as a microcosm of the nature of Take-Two, and the chances of ever seeing the source code. Maybe someone can take a better crack this, but I doubt that they will get anywhere, unless the new management team is more open, and they will likely be months before they are in a position to do anything.

Here is what I sent:

Nov 29th, 2006

Attn: Jason Bergman
2K Games
622 Broadway,
New York, NY
10012

Dear Mr. Bergman:

We had an online discussion in October of this year on the Civilization Fanatics Center (CFC) website. As per our discussion, I am sending this letter to you. I understand you will forward it to the appropriate decision-makers.

I represent a group of dedicated Civilization III players and scenario designers.
Even with the release and ongoing improvements with Civilization IV, this group remains committed to the ongoing development of the Civ III game. We do this primarily through scenario-building, unit-building, and graphics design which test the limits of the existing game engine.

We wish to make a proposal that we feel will create a new revenue stream from the Civ III game base that will augment the Civ IV revenue stream and also foster additional customer goodwill for Take-Two, with extremely little or no risk and resource commitment by Take-Two.

While Civ IV has proven to be spectacular success, when we read the various statements of the fan forums, especially CFC and Aployton, we see there are a significant amount of Civ players who have migrated back to Civ III, along with a number who never purchased Civ IV. We believe these fans of the Civilization series miss some of the stronger war-gaming elements within the Civ III game engine that are not readily available with the Civ IV game engine, even with the release of Warlords. Other attractions to Civ III over Civ IV appear to be its single, all-encompassing editor, easier methods of creating graphics, and the larger map that can be played within Civ III.

We have recognized the fact that the Civ III game engine, while quite excellent, could be improved in a number of areas. Areas we would address would focus on the game engine and expansion of the game editor, especially looking towards improving the war-gaming aspects, Take-Two could then have a new product leaning towards a war-gamed theme that would have an eager market, and this demand would not lessen the strong demand for the Civ IV product.

That being said, we recognize it may not be profitable for Take-Two to commit any time of their coders to upgrade the code (given other projects they have). Also, due to legal concerns, it is impossible for Take-Two to release the source code to the general Civ III public.

Hence, our proposal:

1. Take-Two releases the code and assorted SDK's to an extremely small fan group of coders/testers. There are clearly a significant number of excellent coders among CFC members who would gladly offer their spare time for free for a project of this magnitude. This project team would be selected through private discussions between the CFC website administrators, Take-Two, and myself. All people in this team would sign nondisclosure agreements meeting Take-Two's requirements, and would forbid any public discussion of the entire project, or any distribution of the results.

2. There has been ongoing discussion for many, many months about changes the Civ III fan base would like upgraded within the game engine. The selected team above would select the best and/or most feasible options from these past discussions.

3. This team would then alter the game engine to meet as many of these options as is reasonable in a short time frame, and test it extensively.

4. Once this team is done altering and testing the code, we give the updated code to Take-Two, at no cost.

5. Take-Two retains all rights to distribute the code to the Civ III fan base and charge what they feel is a reasonable rate for this upgraded code. All profits accrued belong to Take-Two.
Take-Two would also reserve the right to not release the project team's work at all, if Take-Two deems it would not be profitable for the company.

We feel this is essentially a no-lose situation for Take-Two. If the project team fails to produce a marketable product within a reasonable time, Take-Two will only suffer the costs of whatever legal fees would be originally required to set this project up. Because this project is done in secret, there can be no expectations from the general public, hence no bad publicity if it fails.

Clearly, until we begin to examine the code we can give no guess on how long it would take to produce a good product. However, we feel that given the high level of commitment, and the composite skill set of the CFC members, this proposal has a strong possibility of success in a relatively short time period.
If the project team is successful, Take-Two gains monetarily, and also gains significant goodwill within the gaming community.

I look forward to your response. I am providing my business phone number, home phone number, and my preferred address if you wish to respond via email.

Home phone: xxx
Business phone: xxx
Email Address: xxx

Sincerely,






xxxx

 

[Steph]

Because this project is done in secret, there can be no expectations from the general public, hence no bad publicity if it fails
xxxx

I especially like that part, published in a public forum...

My idea would have been slightly different. I think Steel Panthers would be better.
I.e. they release the source to a small team, they will then take the responsability.
The team guarantees that the game still need the original CivIII CD rom to work, but beside that if there are bugs or anything else, Take2 could not be held responsible.
The "expansion" could be either free, or use a small fee, a part would be "indirectly" given to Take2 to generate more revenu, but without the need to manage the proejct (ie no cost).
As it would be distributed only via internet, there is no production cost (no CD, no packaging, no shipment)

 

[Mirc]

Wow. That's a great idea. (or maybe I'm just brainwashed? )

 

[Virote_Considon]

Trying again to get the ball rolling...

More seriously, OK, I'm ammenable to "authoring" a list but containing what, both in terms of requests and offers (even if the latter is zero currency cost, just Non-Disclosure Agreements and the like).

You want a list of everything detailed in this thread? If so, do you still need it? Because I can try and come up with it.

Now, long ago and far away - and I do mean years - there was a thread petition & poll with perhaps a score of items on it. If someone could save this poor lowly writer with a deadline gun to his head the effort of doing all the ugly work to locate said thread, I'd be much obliged.

I'm not sure that I know of this thread...

 

[Ozymandias]

I'm not sure that I know of this thread...

I'm not even sure how to find it. It was before C3C came out (i.e., 2003). IIRC Zulu initiated it. It began as a giant wish list and was whittled down to a manageable 20-30 items. Not a peep from Those Who We Know Watch These Boards.

No response to my own letter either ... Not that I really expected one ...

BTW, ironically 622 Broadway is literally just a handful of blocks from where I live.

So it goes,

Oz

 

[Virote_Considon]

Did a quick search:
Old wishlist with Fireaxian respondant (thought it might be useful, only scanned it)

Zulu's Wishlist